Manchester United Team Talk/Gossip/Rumours Thread 2016 - Mod Note in OP, 13/9

sReq | uTeK

The_Kew_Tour wrote: »

Fellaini is not a bad squad player at all.

Personally don't think he should be first team player, but he has his positives and can play role in certain games and if any player gets injured.

Although I rather see plenty others get contract over him

He has never spoke badly once about the club or staff especially when sat on the sidelines for a prolonged period. He's a class act professionally and others could take a leaf out of his book.

I guarantee you Mourinho trusts the lad.

jayo26

Jayop wrote: »

I've absolutely no problem with him losing the head with refs and putting pressure on them. We've been getting barebacked by refs ever since Fergie left, decision after decision going against us and our managers have all been too docile in pointing it out.

For sure yeh but touchline bans aren't good from that respect.

sReq | uTeK

Jayop wrote: »

I've absolutely no problem with him losing the head with refs and putting pressure on them. We've been getting barebacked by refs ever since Fergie left, decision after decision going against us and our managers have all been too docile in pointing it out.

Exactly...What's the problem here. FERGIE used to influence it to no end. Honestly he's doing nothing Fergie hasn't in the past.

Jayop

jayo26 wrote: »

For sure yeh but touchline bans aren't good from that respect.

I don't know. If the refs start to realise that they're going to be put under the spotlight and under pressure from our manager then a few bans for him are worth it.

KH25

sReq | uTeK wrote: »

He has never spoke badly once about the club or staff especially when sat on the sidelines for a prolonged period. He's a class act professionally and others could take a leaf out of his book.

I guarantee you Mourinho trusts the lad.

Good player to have at your disposal. He's not world class but he can do an effective job when needed and he's a very good aerial threat. If he's happy to not be first choice then keeping him is a good idea.

Cantona's Collars

sReq | uTeK wrote: »

Exactly...What's the problem here. FERGIE used to influence it to no end. Honestly he's doing nothing Fergie hasn't in the past.

Graham Poll said the other day that Clattenburg will give a team nothing if the crowd give him grief.

sReq | uTeK

TheDoc wrote: »

Yeah absolutely. The team is looking for various portions far superior then it did under Van Gaal (although he did have some decent spurts himself) and there is clear signs that it's possible this team is a few tweaks away from being a proper force.

I don't think , Liverpool/Cheslea aside, I've made his style as my bone of contention though

The Chelsea game that we fell behind after 1 minute and all tactics pretty much went out the window?

The Liverpool game where we dominated for 30 minutes pressed high and nullified all attacking threat from a front 3 that were scoring for fun..

The only thing he got wrong was city 1st half where he stood off. He realised this at half time and pushed our front 3 man for man on their back and forced Bravo to go long.

Stop holding Mourinho responsible for our inability to convert chances and start praising him for the open expensive football he has us playing.

The fact he can see his own mistakes and change is enough for me. LVG and Moyes banged their head off a brick wall for 1 and 2 years respectively.


Have no doubts things are better at MUFC, even if our league position doesn't show it.

Jayop

zerks wrote: »

Graham Poll said the other day that Clattenburg will give a team nothing if the crowd give him grief.

So no difference to how he's treated us over the last few years then?

I really don't think the refs could ride us any more than they are doing now so the worst case scenario to Jose giving them grief is that things stay the same.

crkball6

sReq | uTeK wrote: »

T

The only thing he got wrong was city 1st half where he stood off. He realised this at half time and pushed our front 3 man for man on their back and forced Bravo to go long.

You could even argue he was let down by Lingard and Miki.
If you watch when they had the chances to push up at the start miki pushed up but then the performances of both of them ending up putting Shaw and Valencia under so much pressure it was difficult if you look at Jose he's constantly telling them to push up and get closer.

I wouldn't put the blame fully at Jose's door for city

The two lads lost us that game before half time.

Jayop

crkball6 wrote: »

You could even argue he was let down by Lingard and Miki.
If you watch when they had the chances to push up at the start miki pushed up but then the performances of both of them ending up putting Shaw and Valencia under so much pressure it was difficult if you look at Jose he's constantly telling them to push up and get closer.

I wouldn't put the blame fully at Jose's door for city

The two lads lost us that game before half time.

A game we still should have gotten a draw out of had the ref not yet again screwed us royally.

TheDoc

duffman13 wrote: »

I've no problems with you throwing out the valid points and I would agree with a lot of them. I have seen you posting on this thread for a number of years and respect your footballing opinion. I do however think your dislike of Mourinho is making you give him less time than you have previous managers. Maybe I'm taking you up the wrong way but you seem like you'd be happy if he was sacked in the morning. If I'm wrong I apologise but that's how it's come across to me at least.

I was not overly pleased when Mourinho got the job but I'm happy enough to give him some time. I'm also happy that performances (if not results) have improved drastically than what we'd seen for the last 12 months. If we were playing rubbish and still not creating chances id be getting frustrated too.

Including friendlies he's been in charge for less than 20 games, a bit of prospective is needed. LVG had two years, Mourinho has had 3 months.

Maybe people are taking my critique the wrong way then. Can 100% clarify I do not want Mourinho sacked or gone, and I sincerely hope and wish for him to work out and would love to have three years of him, at his best.

A fully fledged, confident, Mourinho(what I call MKI) would brim me with confidence about setting a proper stake in the league and Champions league.

I literally cannot say it enough times, I'm not out to get him. Just because I don't like him, does not mean I cannot support him in his role. I've had mangers in workplaces that i utterly disliked as people but they had my full support and they got my 100%.

Me disliking Mourinho does not equal me absolutely sweating for him to get sacked.

Rayne Wooney

Ibra has held the ball well and has had some nice touches but in the last 4 league games he has probably lost us 4 points with his chances missed, arguably 6 if you count the header against Pool.

Really needs to start putting them away

Jayop

Rayne Wooney wrote: »

Ibra has held the ball well and has had some nice touches but in the last 4 league games he has probably lost us 4 points with his chances missed, arguably 6 if you count the header against Pool.

Really needs to start putting them away

He does and he's having a poor spell in front of goal, but imo his general play (and ours) has improved a lot since he stopped scoring which is strange. You'd think the two would go hand in hand.

TheDoc

sReq | uTeK wrote: »

Stop holding Mourinho responsible for our inability to convert chances and start praising him for the open expensive football he has us playing.

I'll take this one first. I feel I can aptly separate when a manager needs to take some stick and when its the players. So while most my ire in the Burnley match was at the players for example, he still made a mental decision replacing Mata and bringing on Fellaini.

I will not blame him for Ibrahimovic failing to bury a chance. I've been consistent with this I feel down the years with Fergie, Moyes, Van Gaal and now Mourinho. A bit part of the flak I took in the Moyes defence period, was when I pointed out how I felt it unfair Moyes was being held responsible for a horrible state of affairs among the players, but people seemed happy to lay that at the managers feet. So I think I've been consistent on this point.

I think in general managers get a bit too much important put on them anyway when it comes to match day outside of what they can influence, so I'd like to think I try avoid blaming the manager for stuff that is inherently not in his control.

The Chelsea game that we fell behind after 1 minute and all tactics pretty much went out the window?

The Liverpool game where we dominated for 30 minutes pressed high and nullified all attacking threat from a front 3 that were scoring for fun..

This is one of the most meticulous managers in modern football. Also one of the best. Your literally providing an excuse for Mourinho that "shrug, scored in first minute, what can I do" I'd maybe expect the manager to make some impacts where he can. That's a total nonsense excuse to provide. It's football, it's unpredictable, managers need to adapt to situations. The fact he waited till halftime as we got smoked by Chelsea was rightly criticised in many quarters. It didn't even need a substitution, it needed him to give some instructions and guidance. Our team looked totally lost.

I covered the Liverpool thing previously. Just disagreed and felt we provided way too much respect to a team in good form, but has an appalling defence and a recent history of basically buckling under pressure. Also think I pointed out "what happens if we get trounced" and specifically made the point with a setup like that, you could conceed early and all the weeks work is out the window. Woops...

The fact he can see his own mistakes and change is enough for me. LVG and Moyes banged their head off a brick wall for 1 and 2 years respectively.

I think Van Gaal made some significant changes that would have counted as the same. He eventually ditched the three at the back thing which was a big deal for him. He dropped our record signing for Fellaini along with some others bits. Like yeah its cool for a manager to acknowledge a mistake and amend it, don't know if its something to champion though is it? Like, anyone makes a mistake, you expect the least they do will address it and/or fix it.

The Chelsea game was scary moreso for seeing Mourinho being utterly helpless in identifying a way to rectify it. Like jesus Neville on commentary you felt was a minute away from running down to the touchline to speak with Mourinho.

Like I said before though,the end will justify the means. Whatever happens end of season, the Chelsea or Liverpool game won't be looked at with any sort of relevance. It's the points dropped at the likes of Burnley,Stoke and the likes of West Brom, Sunderland etc. that will be relevant to how this season pans out

Jayop

The decision that had most people going mad against Burnley was Mata coming off, however did we not create lots of chances after Mata came off so apart from a bit of luck imo that decision was justified.

beno619

TheDoc wrote: »

Moyes had a circumstance being the direct predecessor to Ferguson and some pretty severe squad issues to sort while also making a big step up.

Van Gaal had a circumstance been an international manager and out of club management for a number of years, arrived late in his first summer and had some serious surgery to do to our squad.

So the issue is you've given Moyes and LVG far too much leeway for their laughably performance managing squads capable of finishing in the top 4.

Mourinho will be criticised as harshly on here when and if the time comes.

TheDoc

Jayop wrote: »

He does and he's having a poor spell in front of goal, but imo his general play (and ours) has improved a lot since he stopped scoring which is strange. You'd think the two would go hand in hand.

I actually really like his attitude. Something I've been pleasantly surprised with. so many strikers after that City 1st half would be hooked, but he was kept on and drastically improved.

Seems to really work hard and his linkup play is pretty good. If that does continue with pace around him surely the team thinking will start to lineup. Evident in the last few matches when he drops deep you see people running through the defence and him slipping balls in behind.

It was something I remember mentioned from some French based guy on Football Weekly during the will he won't he sign phase, that he wouldn't be surprised to see him score less, but everyone will be surprised at how clever he is dropping deep.

TheDoc

beno619 wrote: »

So the issue is you've given Moyes and LVG far too much leeway for their laughably performance managing squads capable of finishing in the top 4.

Mourinho will be criticised as harshly on here when and if the time comes.

I think reflecting back, especially with Moyes, I 100% provided them both more leeway and gave them the benefit of the doubt, more then I should have.

Although I've still got a "what if" for Van Gaal and a third season, as mental as that is. Couldn't believe a coach so experienced and good would be happy letting his reputation get torn apart and become a laughing stock. Never felt we got the Louis Van Gaal I read so much about.

And I'm the same with Mourinho, I cannot fathom someone of his standard, experience and ability will not turn United into a monster. The only way I can see that not happening, is if his belief in his methods was truly shattered after last year at Chelsea, which manifested from small cracks appearing at Madrid.

Don't for a second believe he is an outdated coach or out of touch as seemed to be the narrative through a number of podcasts this week. I think that is laughable, calling a manager who won the league title two seasons ago "outdated". Mourinho's Chelsea 4-3-3 was a bit of an evolution in my eyes for English football and he created a truely scary beast. I have to believe he can do that again.

jayo26

Jayop wrote: »

The decision that had most people going mad against Burnley was Mata coming off, however did we not create lots of chances after Mata came off so apart from a bit of luck imo that decision was justified.

Am I the only one that understands his reason for taking mata off. He was the best player on the pitch when we were full strenght but when we went a man down we had to switch to a 3 man midfield and needed pace in our front players so mata was the obvious choice.

sky88

jayo26 wrote: »

Am I the only one that understands his reason for taking mata off. He was the best player on the pitch when we were full strenght but when we went a man down we had to switch to a 3 mam midfield and needed pace in our front w wide players so mata was the obvious choice.

i think peoples main problem was that rooney and fellani came on rather then mata coming off. I think with those 2 theres going to be unhappy fans whenever there used.

i was annoyed at the time but it was decision i think was a sensible one

Jayop

jayo26 wrote: »

Am I the only one that understands his reason for taking mata off. He was the best player on the pitch when we were full strenght but when we went a man down we had to switch to a 3 man midfield and needed pace in our front players so mata was the obvious choice.

Yep, the meltdown was kinda to be expected but the switch was the one that was always going to happen.

Lord TSC

FA officially charge Jose with "misconduct" for the Burnley game :rolleyes:

Jayop

Lord TSC wrote: »

FA officially charge Jose with "misconduct" for the Burnley game :rolleyes:

So he has that and the charge for talking about the ref before the Pool game standing over him.

Julez

zerks wrote: »

Graham Poll said the other day that Clattenburg will give a team nothing if the crowd give him grief.

Only a bad referee would let anything other than the incident at hand determine his decision on how to act.

jayo26

Jayop wrote: »

Yep, the meltdown was kinda to be expected but the switch was the one that was always going to happen.

We're united fans we are the kings at meltdowns I don't think anyone in this thread hasn't had a meltdown.

TheDoc

How close is Poll now to the actual referees? I know he has his column and does some radio, but is he actively involved in anything anymore? I see he comments a fair bit on ref's refs individually, but I would have thought he finished up before most of the current crop, bar Dean, started.

And actually on referees, only spotted now that Phil Dowd appears to be gone from the season selection. Is he retired or did he drop down? Thought he was an abhorrent ref.

Seems to be a few in the current crop I like the look of.

deaddonkey15

A bit worrying that it's only October and Jose has been charged twice by the FA, the team is struggling to win games, and Mkhitaryan continues to be left out of match squads. A few too many parallels to Jose and Chelsea last season for my liking so far.

bucketybuck

jayo26 wrote: »

Am I the only one that understands his reason for taking mata off.

No, I didn't like the necessity but I could see the reasoning there. Going to ten men could well have put us on the back foot and a potential defeat, so the sensible thing to do was replace Herrera and shore up the midfield, that was a choice that had to be made. As it turned out we continued to dominate them even with ten men and the extra creativity would have been useful, but it could also have been very different.

With Rooney coming on you could make a case for sacrificing Zlatan instead of Mata, but considering the circumstances its hard to second guess Mata being the one to make way.

Jayop wrote: »

He does and he's having a poor spell in front of goal, but imo his general play (and ours) has improved a lot since he stopped scoring which is strange. You'd think the two would go hand in hand.

My concern as always comes back to his age. With a younger striker you would hope that he would come through the scoring drought and start banging them in later in the season, but with 35 year old Zlatan how likely is that? He is only going to need resting more as the season goes on, not less, the expected value of sticking with him now is not the same as with other strikers, in my opinion.

Playing him every game like this is a definite mistake in my opinion, akin to Moyes flogging Ferdinand at the start of his reign.

Jayop

We're absolutely overusing him, but I do think he'll start banging them in soon enough.

BMMachine

Lord TSC wrote: »

FA officially charge Jose with "misconduct" for the Burnley game :rolleyes:

this is part of the Mourinho package unfortunately, warts and all. You'd think after so many high profile jobs and incidents that he'd stop or at least calm down but no.. Heck the Anders Frisk thing was 11 years ago now, unforgivable imo.
Thing is, if he gets the results these things don't matter (just ask Fergie) but if they dry up its kind of like "why are you getting hit with this many charges when your team isn't even winning?". Personally, and this is nothing against Utd, I think he should be nowhere near that club - or any top club - and should be left in a cushy job in charge of PSG or some other oil rich plaything. I could be wrong and the results could change and utd get into the top 4 etc. but my gut says this was never the right fit

bangkok

M!Ck^ wrote: »

Fellaini being offered a new contract?

bangkok be like...

I seriously doubt it or hope not at least.

4 seasons now at the club and time to move on.

bangkok

KH25 wrote: »

Good player to have at your disposal. He's not world class but he can do an effective job when needed and he's a very good aerial threat. If he's happy to not be first choice then keeping him is a good idea.

He's actually poor in the air. Might be decent at winning a 50/50 header, but in regards to a goal scoring threat with his head he is very poor at directing his headers on target, let alone scoring them

bangkok

bangkok wrote: »

I seriously doubt it or hope not at least.

4 seasons now at the club and time to move on.

Wow...fair play bangkok, extremely mature and honest of you!

Griezmann with another peach tonight. Would love to see him at the top of Jose's list of targets for next Summer.

bangkok

stankratz wrote: »

Griezmann with another peach tonight. Would love to see him at the top of Jose's list of targets for next Summer.

We can't just keep throwing money at our issues, would be great to sign him alright but would rather see rashford and martial given a chance for an extended period up front

bangkok

Serious performance from city tonight

TheTownie

My god go look at what Ozil just did. Balls of cast iron so he has!

bangkok

bangkok wrote: »

We can't just keep throwing money at our issues, would be great to sign him alright but would rather see rashford and martial given a chance for an extended period up front

I agree about money, but I feel there are a few parts still missing despite the money already spent. A striker is one of those parts, and I felt that way during the Summer and was hoping to see a move made for Griezmann then. We have Ibra and Rashford at opposite ends of the age and experience spectrum as Jose said himself, I can only dream that Jose will play Martial up front, I think Rooney's on his way out.

On Rashford, I think he is a bit wasted on the right.

Jayop

The fact is that we need more than just Rashford and Martial up top and Fergie always had 4 top strikers in rotation for most of his really successful periods. Zlatan will probably be here next year but it's hard to know where Rooney will be at. Griezmann is top class and I'd love to get him in ASAP.

bangkok

Jayop wrote: »

The fact is that we need more than just Rashford and Martial up top and Fergie always had 4 top strikers in rotation for most of his really successful periods. Zlatan will probably be here next year but it's hard to know where Rooney will be at. Griezmann is top class and I'd love to get him in ASAP.

Fergie had 4 top strikers but he played 4-4-2 for majority of time so was easy to keep 4 strikers happy as they all played most of the time.

Most teams now including us Only play one striker so no way could you have 4 top strikers in the squad

jayo26

bangkok wrote: »

Fergie had 4 top strikers but he played 4-4-2 for majority of time so was easy to keep 4 strikers happy as they all played most of the time.

Most teams now including us Only play one striker so no way could you have 4 top strikers in the squad

I think the best way is have two players that play center and wide aka flashers and Martial and then two players that are specialised for that Ibrahimovic and Griezman or the likes would be the perfect four.

bangkok

jayo26 wrote: »

I think the best way is have two players that play center and wide aka flashers and Martial and then two players that are specialised for that Ibrahimovic and Griezman or the likes would be the perfect four.

I would love to see us play with both martial and rashford up front for a few games. Not many defenders would live with that pace down through the middle and it wouldn't be expected either.

---

martial

---

rashford

---

---

mata

---

---

pogba

---

Herrera

---

---

Carrick

---

Shaw

---

blind

---

smalling----darmian

---

de gea

---

Leroy42

The squad we have is more than good enough. Certainly top 4 and for CL.

Winning? probably not but as Leicster showed last year and SAF showed moat years it what you do with what you have thats important.

Most teams would kill to have the squad we have. The players just are not performing.

IMO Jose's main job is to get that winning mentality back into not only the squad but the club

sReq | uTeK

Leroy42 wrote: »

The squad we have is more than good enough. Certainly top 4 and for CL.

Winning? probably not but as Leicster showed last year and SAF showed moat years it what you do with what you have thats important.

Most teams would kill to have the squad we have. The players just are not performing.

IMO Jose's main job is to get that winning mentality back into not only the squad but the club

Most of the players are performing. With the exception of Chelsea which I can shrug off going down so early and smelling being asleep. And also the 1st half against City. With these 2 aside we have been better and the only thing from us being further up the league has been the lack of finishing.

Jayop

I still think a traditional 442 would do well in the league.

bucketybuck

Jayop wrote: »

The fact is that we need more than just Rashford and Martial up top

Perhaps more pertinent is the fact that we don't even know yet if Rashford or Martial can even cut it up front.

Hopefully they get that chance and hopefully they take it, but if a top drawer player like Griezmann was available then we should go for him because we shouldn't be basing our future prospects on potential alone.

Adamocovic

I'm looking forward to seeing the reactions of the players now this week.

Martial wast showing signs of improvement and if reports are right has got a bit of control of his personal life so hopefully the performances on the pitch will come now.

I'd love to see Jones get a run out. Just because I'm a fan though so I understand people who don't want him on the team ha.

Adamocovic

Jayop wrote: »

I still think a traditional 442 would do well in the league.

I don't see Jose changing formation or tactics any time soon but my god I long to see us playing with two up front.

0gac3yjefb5sv7

Adamocovic wrote: »

I'm looking forward to seeing the reactions of the players now this week.

Martial wast showing signs of improvement and if reports are right has got a bit of control of his personal life so hopefully the performances on the pitch will come now.

I'd love to see Jones get a run out. Just because I'm a fan though so I understand people who don't want him on the team ha.

If we don't get 3 points then we may as well get relegated. The players are always due a "reaction". Maybe if we won 2/3 games in a row instead of bouncing back every other week!!

Adamocovic

Pheonix10 wrote: »

If we don't get 3 points then we may as well get relegated. The players are always due a "reaction". Maybe if we won 2/3 games in a row instead of bouncing back every other week!!

Well I was referring to the Fenerbache game.

The might aswell get relegated statement is a bit of an overreaction. But with how brutal Swansea have been we should definitely be expecting 3 points from that match.